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Gender inequalities: how does AI & technology impact careers and domestic lives?

03/25/2026

5 min

To mark this year’s International Women’s Day, professors Gouri MOHAN and Maja KORICA from IÉSEG recently hosted a webinar looking at the impact of generative AI and new technologies on careers, and more widely on our lives outside of work.

As Professor Maja Korica stressed:

“We have been hearing a lot about women using AI less at work, with possible impact on their career trajectories. We also know however that AI may particularly negatively impact careers dominated by women (e.g. more part time and administrative roles), and that contrary to expectations, AI use is leading to more activity, not less, bringing into question whether it will really ‘free’ us, as some have suggested. Given all this, it seemed a really timely conversation to have on the impact of AI on women, including work careers and private lives.”

The online seminar featured the presentation of two international experts who reflected, and shared their research, on the evolving impact of these new digital technologies.

The AI Gender Gap

Dr Rembrand KONING , an expert on strategy, entrepreneurship and use of AI from Harvard Business School, began by noting that despite some of the AI gender gaps, he wanted to start with a positive message linked to International Women’s Day.

He shared an initiative by the AI-powered platform Loveable to make the platform free for all users on the 8^{th of} March. Loveable, a vibe coding platform, is designed to enable non-coders to create websites, apps etc.

In a world where software engineers are predominately male, he said their move to partner with SheBuilds, resonated with one of the promises of AI to “open up coding for the other 99%”. However, he stressed that it wasn’t because something is free that it would guarantee that more women would use such tools.

In his recent paper on gender gaps and AI, Koning notes the potential of this technology “to transform productivity and reduce inequality, but only if adopted broadly.’

He outlined some of his work has shown that gender gaps in terms of use of generative AI are nearly universal. Based on data from a series of studies covering more than 100,000 individuals worldwide, this gender gap holds across nearly all regions, sectors, and occupations. While the differences in AI usage between men and women appear to be slowly converging – he noted that there is still around 10 -20% less usage for women relative to men.

His paper notes that the gap stays even when access to this new technology is equalized, highlighting the need for further research into the gap’s underlying causes.

Why is this a problem?

Over and above the fact that women might miss out on some of the potential productivity gains offered by generative AI, there is the is also a problem linked to the way these models have been developed to train on users’ data.

Koning said there was a risk of creating a “vicious-reinforcing loop”. In other words, as women use AI less, this can lead to AI systems trained on data that inadequately sample women’s preferences and needs.

He acknowledged that while companies are trying to capture who their users are, this wasn’t necessarily easy with data and privacy regulations.

The more we know about the users of these tools, he noted the more we can make sure we build tools that help everyone equally regardless of their background or gender. However, it is also important to look at who is building these AI systems.

Gender gaps not only with users but also the developers behind the tools

His research on the development and organization of AI startups (AI native firms), shows that these startups have become smaller and nimbler – creating more value per employee. And that employees of these companies were more likely to be men. This matters because these AI startups are the ones that are going to launch people’s careers, and where the value is being created now in the economy.

Professor Gouri Mohan notes: “The persistent gender disparity in employment within these firms is also an important reason why many AI tools may fail to incorporate women’s perspectives or even promote gender-based violence and discrimination.”

How new technologies intersect with family and home life

In the second presentation, Dr Ekaterina HERTOG from the Oxford Internet Institute and Institute for Ethics in AI and University of Oxford reminded participants that societies cannot function without unpaid domestic work (raising children, care etc.). However, this work is still not shared evenly by couples. Everywhere in the world women do more than men even if this gap varies.

This has an impact on women’s (paid) work, leisure time and sleep, and longer terms effects such as the motherhood penalty.

Technologies have been presented as part of potential solution to overcoming these inequalities, as they have been touted as a means for freeing households from chores and boosting hidden productivity. But is this really the case?

According to Hertog, research suggests that the consequences are likely to be more complicated.

She has looked at different types of technologies used for unpaid care: for example, technologies used for supervisory tasks, (parental monitoring apps, baby monitoring, smart cameras), communication and relationship management (remote communications, such as Skype, or what’s app), information and online support (e.g. parenting forums and apps), and for education and entertainment.

While these technologies had promoted a number of positive changes, for example in terms of coordination and convenience, she said the researchers did not find clear evidence in terms of time savings. Furthermore, their findings also highlighted some risks.

Risks – slotting into current inequalities

One risk is that new technologies can slot into and interact with existing structural inequalities rather than preventing them. For example, differences in terms of digital access and literacy will mean that certain people don’t benefit from new technologies.

Furthermore, she noted that some research had shown that women often take on more of the responsibility for maintaining these technologies with the domestic sphere. For example, solving problems when technology doesn’t function properly or when updates are needed.

She also noted that another risk was that monitoring technologies (location tacking apps, parental controls etc.) can also change the privacy boundaries within families, potentially eroding trusts and the family connection.

She concluded by noting that women might well benefit from new technologies, but they won’t benefit “automatically”.

“In fact, it is important that new technologies are designed to consider inherent inequalities within the domestic and work spheres so that these differences can be meaningfully reduced rather than amplified”, adds Professor Mohan.